


One Door Swinging Closed

by Shaitanah



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaitanah/pseuds/Shaitanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is a heart condition and Sherlock is perfectly healthy, thank you very much. [Sherlock/Irene]</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Door Swinging Closed

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to BBC, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss & Co. And Arthur Conan Doyle of course. Title from “Holding On and Letting Go” by Ross Copperman.  
> A/N: Because I have a tremendous writer’s block. And because I find that “I took your pulse” moment sexy as hell. And I’m not even sure I ship them.

For a moment there the heart is silent, just as it is supposed to be, just as it had been before people started creeping in. People had always been specks on the horizon, always out of sync, moving when he stood still, frozen when he sped forward. He never noticed unless they were victims or perpetrators or evidence.

 

And then people were in his house. In his head. In his heart.

 

He learned he had a heart and he had no idea what to do with it.

 

“You could always give it to me,” she tells him.

 

She is still here. It is illogical. Someone so concerned with their safety would have been already gone. She doesn’t owe him anything, not even a thank you. He has saved her for his own selfish reasons. Couldn’t very well let Mycroft have the upper hand, could he?

 

But the little victory goes unnoticed, buried in the big treasure chest of Secrets Kept From Mycroft, and months later Sherlock is still keeping it, even from John who has a secret too, and Sherlock chuckles inwardly at it – because honestly, who do they take him for?

 

But for now he is still muffled up in his ridiculous disguise, and she pulls it down, all the way from his face, exposing his skin to her strangely cold fingers.

 

“How do you know I haven’t staged this?” she asks, recomposing herself; if he tries hard not to look, he will not see that her eyes are still wet. “Just to have you come running.”

 

Silly question that proves once again that flirting is just a sum of pointless, deliberately ludicrous utterances designed to lower people’s guard. Staging this would not have been quite so lucrative if her head had ended up on the floor separate from her body. It wouldn’t have made for a particularly captivating crime to solve either.

 

“I would reiterate my offer,” she says, and takes a step back. “But I’m beginning to find a certain appeal in all this.”

 

He knits his eyebrows. He doesn’t understand.

 

“This game we play.”

 

Games, he does understand. He has played a lot of them over the course of his life: with criminals smart enough to challenge him, with Mycroft, with Moriarty, even with himself. He wins every time.

 

Except when he plays against John. Because John doesn’t play.

 

A few months later he never once considers telling John the truth. Not because it doesn’t concern him, but because John has worried for him enough.

 

“I think,” Irene says, eyes twinkling, “I rather enjoy being your fair lady.”

 

Mycroft is wrong. Physical aspects of relationships do not frighten him. He simply finds them boring. Emotions, on the other hand… For John, it’s easy: you either feel, or you don’t. But Sherlock has never been good with easy things.

 

“By that you mean you enjoy losing to me,” he says. If he planned it, he would be trying to make out if it sounds wrong or flat or platitudinous.

 

He would have preferred it if she hadn’t stayed.

 

“Will you be there next time?” she wants to know.

 

She takes one step forward; he takes one step back. They are almost dancing. Everybody seems to be obsessed with watching him dance, but Sherlock prefers battle choreography over ballroom.

 

A few months later he looks out of the window with a smirk on his face. Her fair lady analogy was not too off the mark after all.

 

“You’ll survive,” he tells her. Because if you don’t, I’m not interested.

 

Her razor-sharp lips curve into a tiny smile. She holds out her hand, a silent thank you, and he takes it, his thumb over her pulse purely out of habit.

 

For a moment, his heart is silent.

 

There is only hers.

 

 _January 6, 2012_


End file.
